When the Dakota Freie Presse
finally ceased publication on February 24, 1954, it had performed
an eminently successful eighty-year role as the principal organ
of communication for the ethnic Germans from Russia.1
Even more so than the church and the school in a typical ethnic
community, this paper functioned like a "central nervous system"
for the Germans from Russia. In many respects, it transcended the
churches and schools, for these ethnic Germans fell into essentially
three separate religious categories: the Evangelical, the Catholic,
and the Mennonite.2 Each religious denomination
had its own centripetal cohesion. Education and social life revolved
in a constellation around each particular religion so that at times
even the strong ethnic cohesiveness of the German-Russians was incapable
of surmounting their religious differences. This newspaper, however,
was nondenominational and neutral in politics; therefore it could
do what religion and ethnicity alone could not do. Proudly the Dakota
Freie Presse claimed to be the "the oldest and most widely
distributed newspaper for the German-Russians in the entire world."3

To the last, the DFP was not particularly interested in
reporting the news of a cultural or political nature from the German
Reich. Nor did it make an overt effort to explain the American
culture to its clientele. It did, however, offer its services in
every way possible to promote understanding and cooperation among
the Germans in America. But its focus of attention was distinctly
on the Germans from Russia and the relations between the Germans
still in Russia and those who were living in the United States.
In that regard, it assisted the German-Russians immeasurably in
maintaining a cohesiveness and a pride in their heritage to an extent
that was unknown within any other German immigrant group anywhere
in the world.

Throughout most of its years, the DFP actively sought to
have as its mission that of serving as a clearing-house of information
for, and about, the German-Russians. Illustrating this mission to
the end, the last issue carried a notice in which the prices were
listed for subscriptions to any place in the world: $5.00 per year
for the United States, $5.75 for Canada, $7.00 for countries in
South America, and $8.00 for anywhere in Europe. Thus, the DFP
as a German-language paper was atypical. Carl Schurz, perhaps the
most distinguished of all German-Americans, once said in an address
to the press club of New York that the three main purposes of the
German-language press in America were: 1) to explain America to
those who could not yet read English, 2) to keep the German element
informed of the intellectual progress of Germany, and 3) to promote
understanding and cooperation among the Germans in the United States.4
Although correct in most respects, Schurz' statements do not apply
to the DFP.

In part, the paper maintained its remarkable hold on its far-flung
readers because its editor and publisher during the period from
1903 to 1932 was Friedrich Wilhelm Sallet, who showed a genuine
flair for brief, but informative, editorial comments. His regular
column, "Sallet's Views" (Sallet's Betrachtungen),
was fashioned after the then-respected and popular "Today"
column of Arthur Brisbane, chief editorialist of the Hearst papers.5
Always on the front page, the Betrachtungen continued right
through the Richard Sallet years and always showed the strong opinions
of the editor-publisher of the paper. What is remarkable is that
the Sallet views were frequently written in the interest of some
cause that affected the Germans from Russia—famine in Russia
in 192l, shortages and the lack of news about their fate in the
mid-1920s, the repeat of famine and hunger in 1933. Sallet's vision
of the paper was to foster the well-being of the Germans from Russia
and those still in Russia. His essays frequently dealt with the
situation in Russia, but his efforts also led to the first systematic
publication of narratives about each settlement of German-Russians
on the Great Plains.6 Sometimes addressing
political leaders in the United States and at other times those
in Germany, Sallet expressed shock at the fate of the Germans in
Russia during World War I, and he was horrified at their outcome
when the Bolsheviks began roaming their territories. Most disgusting
of all was the treatment meted out to the Germans left in Russia
during the period of Stalinization and the breakneck speed at which
their agriculture was collectivized after 1928.

This is not to say that F. W. Sallet and his immediate successor,
Richard Sallet, defined and established this socioethnic solidarity;
rather their talents reinforced a tendency that had developed naturally.
Namely, the Germans who migrated from Reich states to Russia
at the invitation of Catherine the Great and her successors to farm
lands along the Black Sea and the Volga River always treasured their
identity as ethnic Germans; their religion as Catholic, Protestant,
or Mennonite; and their language, schools, and culture as German.
In fact, they were so conscious of their singularity as Germans
in Russia that they refused to assimilate with the surrounding Russian
plurality. When these ethnic Germans emigrated from Russia to the
United States, largely between the years 1872 and 1914, they continued
to a remarkable degree their life-patterns of separation from their
neighbors and cohesion among themselves.7
Commenting on the DFP's role in serving these Germans, Der
Auslanddeutsche 8, a bimonthly publication
of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (founded in 1917 and
known until 1945 as the Deutsches Ausland-Institut) in Stuttgart,
Germany, stated in 1920:

The Dakota Freie Presse is the recognized organ of the
Russian-Germans in America and perhaps in the whole world. As
such, it offers largely the private correspondence of its readers.
Although these write-ups are superficial and rather insignificant
as far as content is concerned, below the surface they have great
importance because the identity and cohesion of the German ethnics
who emigrated from Russia has been thereby maintained for nearly
fifty years.9

Politicians in South Dakota sometimes referred to the paper as
the "bible of the Russian-Germans." In the course of its
nearly eighty-year history, the paper was treated like a "bible"
for it did accompany many a German-Russian family not only
through several generations but across several continents. Often
the paper was their political adviser, their economic guide, and
the very impetus that set them thinking about migrating to America.10

Founded in April of 1874, the Dakota Freie Presse was originally
edited and published in Yankton, South Dakota. From the scant information
we have, it was established and at first edited by Bernhard Quinke,
who sold it the following year to Judge Charles F. Rossteuscher.11
In turn, Rossteuscher sold the paper to Gustav A. Wetter, who seems
to have edited and published the paper from 1876-1885. In 1885 or
1886, Johann Christian Wenzlaff bought the paper. Gustav G. Wenzlaff
wrote that Johann Christian Wenzlaff had "this literary urge
that finally induced him to acquire the Dakota Freie Presse
of Yankton, the oldest German publication in Dakota Territory, circulated
in many states, Canada and in the colonies in Europe. He acquired
a building lot on Broadway and erected a brick building to house
the printing establishment and editorial room."12

A year later Wenzlaff sold the DFP to his oldest son, Salomon
Wenzlaff, who had just finished a four-year term (1882-1886) in
Tyndall as treasurer of Bon Homme County. The DFP thus became
a family affair. A gifted businessman who held hardware stores in
Scotland and Tyndall, South Dakota, Salomon Wenzlaff owned and published
the paper alone until 1892 when he was joined in the venture by
a man named Krause, making it Krause and Wenzlaff until approximately
1901.13 The DFP firm then passed into
the hands of Krause, Ellerman, Kositzky, and Lusk until 1903 when
it was sold to Friedrich Wilhelm Sallet, the major figure in the
paper's next three decades.

Further information regarding the DFP in this period derives
from a comment by Gustav Wenzlaff concerning his brother-in-law,
Gustav Kositzky (1845-1930) who had been born in Posen, Germany.
In 1901, Kositzky "finally returned to Old Yankton....Here
he became one of the owners of the Yankton Printing Company, which
combined under one management two of the oldest newspapers in the
state, The PressandDakotan, in English,
and Die Dakota Freie Presse, in German."14
According to Gustav Kositzky's son, Dr. James Coe (name shortened
from Kositzky), Gustav sold his share in the DFP to the co-owners
Krause, Ellerman, and Lusk. It was the latter three partners who
would negotiate the sale to F. W. Sallet. Note, however, that Gustav
Kositzky with Ellerman would repurchase the paper from F. W. Sallet
in 1906-1908, and that Kositzky would continue as a correspondent
for the paper throughout this time and into the early Sallet years.

At the age of about eighty, John Christian Wenzlaff, Jr., (1860-1951)
wrote in his autobiography:

I accepted an offer to work as foreman with the Dakota Freie
Presse in Yankton, South Dakota, and accordingly, moved there
with my family in August, 1893. The Dakota Freie Presse
had been owned by my father Johann Christian Wenzlaff, (Sr.) (1827-1894),
and later by my brother Salomon, but when I took employment with
the newspaper, it was owned and operated by my brother and a partner
under the name of Krause and Wenzlaff. I was employed with the
newspaper for twelve and a half years. During these years my brother
sold his share in the newspaper to Herman Ellerman and finally,
the partners Krause and Ellerman sold the newspaper to a man named
Sallet who was the owner when I terminated my long employment
with the paper. 15

The early years of the DFP prior to the sale to Sallet were
already characterized by its concern for the Germans from Russia,
a mission that evolved only after the German-Russian Wenzlaff family
acquired it. Initially it had a very low and only local circulation
(295 copies in 1875, 1200 in 1880, 2170 in 1890, and 3400 in 1900),
and not until after the F. W. Sallet years commenced did the paper
take on its transregional nature and a skyrocketing circulation
(7,500 in 1905, 9,500 in 1910, and nearly 14,000 by 1920). 16
Since few copies of the paper prior to the 1903 publication date
exist, however, it is difficult to make more than generalizing remarks
about its appearance, size, focus, and readership.

In 1903, however, the DFP already had its stringers in the
key German-Russian settlements, such as S. Müller in Parkston,
Franz Tempel in Marion, John Lehr in Delmont, Philip Schamber in
Eureka (all in South Dakota), as well as Fred Spiry in Iowa and
Samuel Pflugrath in Washington state. There were none in North Dakota
at this time, reflecting the fact that the German-Russians had at
the time just begun their trek into North Dakota where their settlements
almost all date from the early twentieth century. Coverage of the
German-Russian settlements in Europe was reflected in reports from
Heinrich Reich who roved the northern rim of the Black Sea, Georg
Weikum in Rohrbach (Rogowka) Kherson District, Karl Berndt in Neu
Danzig (Balazkoje) Kherson District, Martin Radke in Cogelac, and
Simon Schilikowski and Emil Arnold in the Crimea, all of whom apparently
lived directly in the local villages. At that time the paper was
mainly distributed in the area of South Dakota (with a few subscribers
in North Dakota) where it was read only by German-Russians from
the Black Sea region of Russia.

In passing the torch of ownership in 1903, both the former owners,
Krause and Ellerman, and the new one, F. W. Sallet, addressed their
readers in the July 30, 1903, issue of the DFP. Sallet reiterated
that he had gained newspaper experience with the Wisconsin Thalbote
in Merrill beginning in 1894 and then sold it in 1902 to return
to Germany to take over a family newspaper there. When he discovered,
however, that his children preferred to live in America, he too
came to the realization that he wished to spend his life in the
United States. F. W. Sallet then traveled the states from the Atlantic
to the Pacific in search of an appropriate paper to purchase. In
acquiring the DFP, Sallet expressed his gratitude to the
employees who would remain with him, in particular his assistant
editor, Gustav Lyser, and his print-shop foreman, Christian Wentzlaff,
the latter of German-Russian origin.

Friedrich Wilhelm Sallet was born on December 16, 1859, in Langheim,
East Prussia, of Karl and Luisa (Bress) Sallet, a family that traced
its history back to the thirteenth century when the name was written
"Salleyde." During the Reformation, Margarethe, the daughter
of Martin Luther, married a man named Kunheim. Kunheim's mother
was born Sallet, and thus the family was converted to the Lutheran
religion. Five Sallet brothers once served in the army of Frederick
the Great (accounting for the family preference for the name Friedrich),
and a Daniel Sallet, grandfather of F. W. and the namesake for Richard's
father, fought against Napoleon during the Völkerschlacht
(Battle of the Nations) at Leipzig.

Friedrich Wilhelm married Ida Rosenbreier (of Swedish extraction)
who had been born at Obo, Finland, in 1865. The wedding took place
in Helsingfors, now Helsinki, but this marriage ended in divorce.17
There were, however, four children: Carl Friedrich, born June 22,
1889, in Helsinki, who came to America with his parents when he
was one year old. 18 Another son, Harald
Wilhelm, was born October 20, 1891, in Chicago.19
Daughter Hedwig (Hattie) was born about 1893 in Merrill, Wisconsin
20, while Herbert H. was born October 10,
1896, in Merrill and lived in New Ulm. In a second marriage, F.
W. Sallet married Elizabeth Goetz (in Milwaukee) who had been born
October 17, 1884, in Yankton, South Dakota, and died December 28,
1946, in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.21 Of this
marriage there were two children, Frederick William, Jr., born June
28, 1907, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who married and moved to
Florida, and Hans Daniel, born October 28, 1909, who did not marry
but ran the farm in Minocqua.

As far as the newspaper preparation is concerned, F. W. Sallet
started school in 1865 in Langheim, then continued his studies after
1867 in Rössel and moved with his parents to Königsberg
in 1872, where he became an apprentice to a printing firm in 1874.
In 1880 he visited Russia, traveling first to Memel, then Riga and
finally St. Petersburg, from where he crossed to Helsingfors. Able
by this time to speak French, Russian, and Swedish, he married his
first wife, had his first son Carl F., and worked on a Swedish paper
until about 1890 when he returned to Germany. From there he left
almost immediately for the United States, spending the first few
years in Chicago.22

By 1894, F. W. Sallet had moved to Merrill, Wisconsin, where he
bought the Lincoln County Anzeiger and founded the Wisconsin
Thalbote shortly thereafter.23 He published
these papers until 1902 when he sold them, left Merrill to pay a
visit to his fatherland, and ultimately returned to the United States,
where, in Yankton, South Dakota, as we have noted above, he purchased
the DFP from the firm of Krause and Ellerman.

No sooner had Sallet bought the paper than he took a trip to learn
to know his readers. He went first to Scotland, then Menno, Freeman,
and Marion, South Dakota, where he found Jakob Hieb, who later became
a continuing contributor to his paper. Everywhere he found people
who were interested in keeping up the German language, traditions,
and customs, and who viewed the DFP as their medium of solidarity
in this undertaking.

In September 1905, the paper moved into new quarters in Yankton
and declared itself politically independent, thereby losing the
patronage of the Republican Council of Yankton. However, the new
publisher gained the support of many German-Russians as a result
of which the paper could boast of having not only the finest publishing
house in South Dakota but also more subscribers than any English-language
paper in South Dakota.

Less than a year later, however, in March 1906, Sallet sold his
publishing business, his building, and all his presses to the firm
of Ellerman and Kositzky. As mentioned above, Gustav Kositzky had
been a traveling correspondent for the paper for years. Involved
in operating the newly acquired business were Hermann Ellermann,
Gustav Kositzky, John Holmann and W.C. Lusk. These new and temporary
owners called the firm the Yankton Printing Company and placed primary
editorial responsibility with Gustav Lyser, who had been with the
company for some years prior.24 Sallet claimed
ill health as the reason for selling the paper. Conjecture might
lead to the conclusion that the sale had something to do with Sallet's
divorce from his first wife and a financial settlement but the two-year
hiatus remains shrouded in mystery. 25

In March 1908, F. W. Sallet abruptly bought back the paper. In
a front-page address to his readers he explained that two years
earlier he had been severely confused and troubled by an unhappy
marriage. Fully recovered now, he declared himself eager to move
forward, having outlasted his detractors. Via large print in his
column, he vowed anew his intention to keep the paper independent
in politics and dedicated to but one task—to cultivate the
German mother-tongue and traditions so as to develop "our"
immigrant countrymen into fine citizens of the new Republic and
to preserve personal freedom which momentarily was being threatened
by the ambitious and impatient supporters of prohibition. F. W.
Sallet concluded:

With a joyous heart, I once again greet my community of readers
and entreat them to reserve for me a place in there hearts. In
the future, may the old Freie Presse be the bond that ties
us all together wherever we as individual members of this community
may be scattered throughout the entire world. 26

A major shift in the paper's "career" occurred on July
1, 1909, when F. W. Sallet advised his readers that the paper was
about to leave Yankton. In a front-page poem, the ambitious Sallet
concluded, "Die Freie Presse schreitet vorn und vorne soll
sie bleiben" (The Freie Presse is moving forward,
and forward it shall always remain). In explaining the move to his
readers, Sallet said that his manager, John Krause, had advised
the move some six years earlier. More likely, it was the inducement
of the Aberdeen Commercial Club that convinced Sallet to move closer
to a railroad center and commercial hub which would attract more
advertising. 27

The very next week, from Aberdeen, Sallet again addressed his readers,
this time with a picture of himself followed by a full page in English
explaining his intentions. As a part of his move to Aberdeen, Sallet
had purchased a lot, erected a building, and bought all new printing
equipment. "The experts who were here to install our machinery
said this is the finest printing establishment they had ever seen
in the United States and they ought to know, as they travel through
all of the states," Sallet stated, and went on to explain that
he had received no bonuses, no land, no outside inducements as other
businesses had, and in turn he asked for the good will of the people
of Aberdeen with their advertising and job printing. Several pages
in addition to the first were dedicated to pictures of the new plant
and equipment. 28

At Aberdeen, Sallet continued the DFP and founded the Neue
Deutsche Presse, which enjoyed an extremely successful publishing
history, reaching a circulation of over 12,000 by the time it was
forced out of existence in 1918. He also established the DFP
Travel Bureau, a feature of the DFP which continued for several
decades. In this period, also, the DFP broadened its base
into a paper not only for Germans from the Black Sea but for Germans
from the Volga River area of Russia as well. This was not an entirely
new undertaking, rather an expansion of a previously established
strategy for reaching all the Germans from Russia. Since 1904 Sallet
had maintained a correspondent, Alexander Bauer, and an agent, Jakob
Volz, in Merkel (Makarowka) in the Volga district of Frank, but
only after 1910 did the editor-publisher make a concerted effort
to recruit American Volga German readers in Lincoln, Nebraska; Glen
Ullin, North Dakota; and other areas. For example, when Emanuel
Dittus visited Glen Ullin in 1905, he boasted bringing back 115
new subscriptions, while Jakob Volz, who visited Lincoln, Nebraska,
in 1910, vaunted having garnered 73 new subscriptions for the paper.

F. W. Sallet was able to garner new subscriptions not because the
paper's glitz and glamour or its slick advertising, but because
the editor was socially and humanely concerned about his chosen
readership. Beginning in 1915, Sallet succeeded in establishing
contact between German-Russian prisoners of war kept in Germany
and their relatives and friends in America. Often the letters they
exchanged were published in the paper, while the American counterparts
usually sent money and personal gifts.29
Following the passage of the amendment on prohibition in 1919, F.
W. Sallet took up for the cause for reasonable consumption of beer
and wine, once taking a readership poll to gain sense of how the
Germans from Russia wanted him to stand on the issue. Returns on
the straw ballot brought in 10,000 votes against prohibition with
a mere 50 in favor. This public opinion strategy was repeated in
1933 by Richard Sallet on the question of whether the United States
under Roosevelt should recognize the Communistic Soviet Union, yielding
a vote of 7,934 to 190 against granting diplomatic recognition.
30

As stated at the outset, the DFP transcended even the church
and the parochial school as a unifying force among the Germans from
Russia. It is interesting to observe, however, that only John Christian
Wenzlaff, his son Salomon Wenzlaff (both born in Alt-Arzis, Bessarabia,
near Odessa), and Joseph Gaeckle (born elsewhere, also in Bessarabia),
among all the editors and publishers, were actually Germans from
Russia. This is quite remarkable! In spite of having editors from
Imperial Germany, the DFP did not concentrate on German news
or even on world news but on news of the Germans from Russia. To
be sure, items of world and national importance were included, but
clearly the matters of great significance to the readers were the
columns written from Russia, from the various states, and from the
German-Russian provinces of Canada. These continued throughout the
Sallet years and right up to the outbreak of World War II. From
time to time the paper listed all its stringer reporters in Russia,
Canada, and the United States.31 Regularly
there was a segment of personal notes from the Dakotas, Nebraska,
Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kansas,
and occasionally from Texas, California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon,
and Canada. There were also reports, in later years often on the
front page, from the German colonies on the Volga, on the Black
Sea, in Romania, and even in Argentina. Naturally, in a paper where
the personal touch was its success, it was important to have traveling
reporters. The DFP had these in addition to those who reported
consistently from a given state or area. Moreover, F. W. Sallet
himself tried to travel from settlement to settlement whenever time
permitted—as did his successor Richard Sallet (certainly with
great benefit for future scholars when he wrote his doctoral dissertation
as a report about his travels for the paper). 32

Often the paper functioned as a supraregional clearing-house for
the sale of farms. Frequently such listings provided information
about the community—the presence of German-speaking people
in the vicinity, the proximity of German churches and schools, and
perhaps some information about the climate, availability of water,
etc. Sometimes such organizations as the Evangelical Colonization
Company of Merrill, Wisconsin, advertised their lands for sale in
the DFP. This is one of the few examples where the organ
seems not specifically oriented to a German-Russian clientele. However
F. W. Sallet was well-acquainted in Merrill, and it is likely that
he recruited advertisements from this agency for the success that
might be wrought from and for his German-Russian readers who were
always hungry for land.

There was also a weekly column for those searching for a German-Russian's
address or for a few particulars about a long-lost relative or friend.
Captioned under Addressengesuche, the one requesting whereabouts
had to pay fifty cents for each entry. In a typical week there were
inquiries, for example, from Karl Karch of Glen Ullin, North Dakota;
Frau Kerbs (born Schimpf) of Russell, Kansas; Ludwig Richter of
Alberta, Canada; Peter Lieber of North Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Louis
Helzer of Gering, Nebraska; Phillip Wanner of Schaffer, Kansas;
and many more.

Some DFP services were offered on a more local basis. For
example, frequently a traveling doctor, such a Dr. Wm. C. Boteler
of Minneapolis, who specialized in eye problems, especially trachoma,
with which the German-Russians were all too familiar, would give
his itinerary in the paper, noting, for example, that in a given
week he would be in Tuttle, McClusky, Medina, New Leipzig, Wishek,
and Kulm, North Dakota. The next week he would schedule another
territory and always his German-Russian clientele could plan to
be at the announced office for treatment on the day of his visit
to that community. Another medical specialist who placed such announcements
was Dr. Mellenthin, also of Minneapolis. Likewise there were frequent
advertisements for salves and ointments to help those suffering
from trachoma. The recovered former Augenkranken (trachoma
patients) seemed willing to write testimonials about the success
of some such Augensalben. In 1908 the DFP was successful
in having the United States Immigration Service station doctors
at the ports of embarkation in Germany so that Germans from Russia
who suffered from trachoma and therefore ran the risk of being sent
back to their homeland might be able to avoid the costly two-way
trip. The senators from North and South Dakota were persuaded to
offer this legislation which subsequently became law. 33

Then there were advertisements placed by the sugar beet refineries
that customarily found many of their field workers and plant operators
among the German-Russians from the Volga. For example, they were
invited to apply for work to Henry Smetana, Owosso Sugar Company,
Owosso, Michigan. Sometimes these companies also offered land for
rent or for sale through the company if the buyers would agree to
raising beets for the company. If work alone was offered, then the
advertisements often included provisions for free transportation
and accommodations at the work site.

Throughout the World War I period, Sallet was active on behalf
of his countrymen. In order to accomplish as much as possible, he
cultivated contacts in high places. For example, he received a "thank
you" note from Count Johann-Heinrich von Bernstorff, the German
ambassador to the United States, for monies collected for the German
relief organizations in 1916,34 and he supported
the petition to President Woodrow Wilson, asking that America cease
the shipment of arms to the Allies. As a result of these actions,
it appears, both his house and his business in Aberdeen were broken
into and plundered by local authorities. As F. W. Sallet himself
put it, "They apparently expected to find in my house the military
plans of Field Marshal von Hindenburg. 35

In October 1917, for the first time in American history, Congress
passed a law specifically to control the foreign-language press.
It provided that exact translations of all matters relating to the
war had to be submitted to the local postmaster until such time
as the government was sufficiently convinced of the loyalty of the
foreign-language paper to issue a permit exempting it henceforth
from the cumbersome and expensive process of filing translations.36
As a result of this anti-German legislation, the DFP boldly
displayed its authorization to print in the German language: "Published
and distributed under Permit (No. 667) authorized by the Act of
October 6, 1917 on file at the Post Office of Aberdeen, So. Dakota
- By order of the President, A.S. Burleson, Postmaster General."

The first issue of the DFP to appear after the ban went
into effect was on October 9, 1917, during the paper's forty-fourth
year. In a triple-column headline, F. W. Sallet announced to his
readers that the President had signed into law a provision according
to which German newspapers were forbidden to print information about
the war in the German language only:

Selbstverständlich müssen wir uns allen Gesetzen
fügen (It goes without saying that we must obey all laws).
Today, as a result, we are bringing the war news only in the English
language, as the law requires, and we will be applying for our
license from the President in order to be permitted once more
to print war news in the German language. In the hope that we
will soon be receiving this permit, we request that our readers
remain faithful to our paper and that you will send even more
news from your local areas, so that each issue will have interesting
reading materials. The publishers.

Directly beneath this announcement, Sallet included, in German,
Section 19 of the now infamous "Trading with the Enemy"
Act which spelled out the restrictions placed on German-language
newspapers. One week later on October 16, 1917, the publishers again
used the front page to bring the entire content of the Act to the
attention of their reading public, this time both in German and
in English The Act provided:

That 10 days after the approval of this act and until the end
of the war, it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, corporation,
or association to print, publish, or circulate in any foreign
language any news item, editorial or other printed matter, respecting
the Government of the United States, or any other nation engaged
in the present war, its policies, international relations, the
state or conduct of the war, or any other matter related thereto:
Provided. That this section shall not apply to any print, newspaper,
or publication where the publisher or distributor thereof, on
or before offering the same for mailing, or in any matter distributing
it to the public, has filed with the postmaster at the place of
publication, in the form of an affidavit, a true and complete
translation of the entire article containing such matter proposed
to be published in such print, newspaper or publication, and has
caused to be printed, in plain type of the English language at
the head of each item, editorial, or other matter, on each copy
of such print, newspaper or publication, the words "True
translation filed with the postmaster at on (naming
the post office where the publication was filed and the date of
filing thereof), as required by the act."

Any print that did not conform to these regulations was declared
by the Act to be non-mailable, and unlawful to be transported or
carried in any way. Only the President of the United States (through
his cabinet officer at the post office) could issue a permit for
foreign-language publications to return to normal operations and
such permits were subject to restriction or revocation at his discretion.
Once the permit was granted the papers had to show in bold English
type the statement: "Published and distributed under permit
authorized by the Act, ect." Any person who was found guilty
of making an inaccurate or false translation for the postmaster's
file was subject to a prison sentence of one year or a fine or both
at the discretion of the court. Readers of the DFP were thus
apprised of the restrictions on October 16, 1917, and subsequently
all articles dealing with wartime matters were headed by the caption
in English: "True translation filed with the postmaster at
Aberdeen, S.D. on (that date) as required by the Act of October
6, 1917."

Just three months later, F. W. Sallet included on the front page
of the January 22, 1918, issue of the DFP, in both German
and English, the following note to his readers: "As the publisher
and editor of this publication are charged with transgressing the
law of October 6, 1917, regarding publications in the German language,
and are being held for investigation, we kindly ask our readers
to overlook the fact that today's paper does not contain as much
war news as usual." Not only did the war reports shrink dramatically,
but all of the articles with war topics appeared in English. One
week later, on January 29, 1918, the paper returned to German-language
articles about the war and readers learned in a modest article that
F. W. Sallet, the publisher, and J.F. Paul Gross, the editor of
the paper, had been arrested. They were charged with different crimes:
Sallet for having failed to file an English translation for two
of the articles printed in his paper and Gross for having worn a
ring with a traitorous inscription on it and a watchband that bore
an image of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm and Austria's Kaiser Franz
Josef. Sallet was released on bail and the hope was that Gross also
would be freed on bond. Since the English-language press was broadcasting
wild rumors about high treason and support of the enemy, Sallet
begged his loyal readers to await the truth which could be expected
from the court hearing.

On February 5, 1918, Sallet addressed his readers with a lengthy
statement of the facts, once again in German and English. According
to Sallet, on Saturday, January 19, at four o'clock in the afternoon,
federal agents accompanied by Sheriff Wyckoff, Chief Coacher, Chairman
Kennedy, Colonel Harkins, and a number of policemen as well as members
of the homeguard appeared at the office of the DFP Printing
Company, displayed a search warrant, and commenced to search the
entire office. At the same time, another party of officials searched
the home of F. W. Sallet. All of Sallet's correspondence, his newspaper
files, and his complete set of documents in the office were taken
by the officers, and, at 6 p.m., F. W. Sallet himself was taken
into custody. The next Sunday, January 20, editor J.F. Paul Gross
was also arrested and both were held at the police station until
the U.S. Marshall returned, he being the only one who could serve
the warrant. On Monday evening, both men were taken from prison
for a hearing before U.S. Commissioner Wallace.

According to the warrant, Sallet was accused of having failed to
file the translations of two articles, both of which had allegedly
appeared in Sallet's second German-language paper, the Neue Deutsche
Presse, on January 11, 1918. One article dealt with the requirement
of aliens to register and the other was about a Mr. Fred Henning.
We do not know a great deal about the Henning case except that the
local Aberdeen Daily American on January 20, 1918, reported:
"In this case a German resident of Aberdeen was interned for
beating his wife because she went to the Red Cross. This was but
one of his disloyal manifestations." The next day on January
21, 1918, the ADA stated:

Both arrests have been hinged largely upon the way the paper
(Neue Deutsche Presse) handled the story of the arrest
and presumable internment of Fred Henning, an Aberdeen resident
who was arrested upon a presidential warrant. No translation of
this news item was filed with Postmaster Kelley, the authorities
claiming it should have been. They assert that the spirit of the
item was clearly disloyal. The item as it appeared contained in
substance this statement as characteristic of the tone, FIRE AND
FLAME FOR THE FATHERLAND. Naturally, speaking of Henning in extenuation
of his pro-German activities, he, as a German naval reservist,
was fire and flame for the Fatherland. In another phrase, it was
stated that "while he hated to leave his wife and family,
he would choose this separation rather to make a murderer's cave
of his heart." The meaning of this being taken to be that
separation as an interned enemy was rather to be chosen than to
kill within his heart the allegiance which he had for the Kaiser.
Henning was a German reservist and had taken out his first papers
30 or so years ago and never completed his citizenship tho he
has been voting in this city for years

The article on the requirement of the registration for aliens appears
not in the January 11 but in the January 4 issue of the Neue
Deutsche Presse. The article reports straightforwardly that
500,000 unnaturalized German-born persons in the United States had
been ordered by President Wilson to register at their local post
offices of police stations, beginning on Monday, February 4, 1918.
Every German living in the United States was ordered furthermore
to secure and show on demand a certificate obtained from the police
or postmaster, and was forbidden to change domiciles as long as
the war continued, without permission of the authorities. Women
and children below the age of eleven years did not need to register.
The article went on to furnish details of the registration. To today's
reader, the article could in no way be construed as sympathizing
with the unnaturalized German aliens in America.

After Sallet and Gross were charged, both pleaded "not guilty."
They were bound over to the May term of the U.S. Court and released,
each posting bond of $5,000. F. W. Sallet made a noble plea to his
people:

The public looks with suspicion and prejudice upon all citizens
of German extraction. That should not be so. The German-American
is the most law-abiding citizen in the United States. In particular,
the farmers of German extraction, who have done the most to develop
our territory into one of the richest agricultural states in the
Union, deserve fair treatment. They will all do their full duty
to this their adopted country. It is true that their sympathy
was for Germany at the beginning of the war in Europe, just as
the Anglo-Americans were pro-English and the French-Americans
were pro-French. But as soon as the Congress of the United States
had declared a state of war against Germany, they turned away
from their old mother Germania and followed their chosen bride,
Columbia. They forgot the land of their childhood and thought
only of the land of their children. Numerous are the boys of German
extraction who have followed the call to arms and everyone of
them will do his full duty at the front.

The same is true of the German press in the United States. We
all abandoned our old home country by our own free will, and by
our own free will we selected America to become our new home,
and the fatherland of our children. Ours was the noble duty to
lead the German immigrant into American citizenship, and how we
succeed herein, is proven by the known fact that the German emigrants
to America are lost to Germany. No Britisher, no Frenchman, no
Italian, whoever came to this country, accepts American citizenship
as readily as does the immigrant from Germany. 37

Admitting deep down that pleas of this nature offered little hope
for the immediate future, F. W. Sallet conceded the inevitable—that
his Neue Deutsche Presse had already lost so many subscribers
from its peak of over 12,000 in 1910 that he felt forced to cease
publishing it. Against odds that the paper could reestablish operations
after the war, he announced that he was discontinuing the NDP
and that the remaining subscribers would automatically receive the
DFP. The NDP was never resurrected. Sallet closed
his report concerning the combined subscription status with the
words: "Der bevorstehende Prozess wird uns viel Geld kosten.
Wir hoffen, daß ein jeder seine Pflicht tun und seinen Zeitungsmann
nicht im Stich lassen wird, dieweil er in Not ist!" (The
upcoming trial will cost us a great deal of money. We hope each
of you will do his duty, and will not leave his newspaper man in
the lurch when he is in dire need.) 38

When the May 1918 term of court rolled around, F. W. Sallet and
J.F. Paul Gross duly went on trial. The courtroom was highly charged
because the Senate had just passed the infamous Sedition Bill by
a vote of 48-26. The Aberdeen Daily commented:

Opponents of the measure who have contended that freedom of speech
and the press would be curtailed lost their fight to strike out
a clause giving the postmaster general authority to withhold mail
believed to violate the espionage laws and restore the France
amendment excepting from the law truthful statements made with
good motives.

The bill provided stiff penalties of $10,000 or twenty years imprisonment
or both, and was needed allegedly "to prevent mob violence
which has resulted from the department's inability to secure convictions
of persons making disloyal utterances."39
Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that on the same front page
of the ADA, under a Sioux Falls dateline, Judge Elliot
had denied "Conrad Kornmann, editor of a German language newspaper
here," a motion for a new trial. Kornmann was fined $1,000
and sentenced to ten years in prison. Kornmann would join Sallet
later in the New Ulm time-frame of the DFP.

Between the date of the arrest and trial of Sallet, the prosecution
had discovered that Mr. J.F. Paul Gross was a so-called enemy alien.
Believing that he had become a citizen when his father was naturalized
at Fargo, Gross now was informed that no naturalization occurred
because he was already twenty-one years and fourteen days old when
his father became a citizen and therefore he did not qualify for
family inclusion. Technically an enemy alien, he was retrieved from
bail and interned at Forth Oglethorpe, Georgia, for the duration
of the war. Sallet therefore stood alone in Federal Court at Aberdeen.40
Since Gross was not present to hear the accusations, Sallet at once
accepted the responsibility for the charges against Gross, whose
duty as editor was to file the translations. Sallet acknowledged
that as publisher he bore the responsibility for the editor's action
and thus pleaded "guilty."

The indictment of Sallet came from a grand jury impaneled from
cities across the state of South Dakota. Along with three other
men—Edwin S. Rietz, Walter Heynacher, and John Piepgros—Sallet
was charged with violation of the espionage act "for failure
to file translations of certain war articles on Jan. 11, 1918,"
but escaped more serious charges "owing to his testifying for
the government in the trial of Conrad Kornmann at Sioux Falls."41
Against Rietz the prosecution maintained that he said he would not
plant grain if his son were drafted and wished the U.S. a beating
at the hands of Germany. Heynacher, a former secretary of the German
American Alliance, had said that the war was all foolishness and
a Wall Street war. Piepgross was charged for having promised to
celebrate "right" when Germany won the war.

Sallet's guilty plea was accompanied by an affidavit filed and
read in court by his attorney, J.J. Conroy. (Another attorney retained
by Sallet, Miss Dorothy Rehfeld, was the first female attorney to
practice law in South Dakota.) In part, the affidavit stated that
Sallet had been indicted for having published in the Neue Deutsche
Presse articles inserted by J.F. Paul Gross as managing editor.
It denied that Sallet knew or had information that the item in question
had appeared in the paper prior to the date of January 11, 1918,
until after the paper had been printed and was ready for distribution.42
Sallet also swore that he interviewed Gross relative to the article
and reprimanded him for not publishing the article the same as it
had appeared in the Aberdeen Daily News the night before.
This testimony pertained to the article on Fred Henning.

As for the story concerning the registration of enemy German aliens,
Sallet testified in his affidavit that the article was taken verbatim
from another German-language newspaper. Sallet and his attorney
argued that the dispatch that appeared in that other paper was not
filed in translation by its editor and neither its editor nor its
publisher were investigated, arrested, or charged with a crime.
Moreover, Sallet's affidavit claimed, the article appeared in most
of the German-language newspapers in the United States and in no
other case was it translated into English in order to comply with
the October 6, 1917, law. Copies of a number of these articles from
other German papers were affixed to the affidavit as exhibits. Finally,
Sallet swore in the affidavit that he had always attempted to obey
all regulations and laws, that he never knowingly or intentionally
failed to comply with the law in all respects, and that if he violated
law pertaining to foreign-language newspapers, he had done so unintentionally
and without the desire to violate any law whatsoever. Upon hearing
the statement, Judge James D. Elliot said he believed Sallet's statement,
said he had made his own investigation of the case, affirmed that
he had known Sallet for many years as an upright citizen with a
faultless life, a high reputation, and good social standing, and
that the violation of the law as charged was only a "technicality."
Judge Elliot therefore felt justified in imposing the lowest fine
possible of $500. Still the English-language paper headlined "5
Pro-Germans sentenced by Judge Elliot." 43

The fine itself may have been financially bearable, but it was
only the tip of the iceberg. According to a biographical sketch
of Sallet that appeared in the April 8, 1924, issue of the DFP,
the publisher also spent a total of $6,000 on attorney's fees for
the case, and another $6,000 that he could ill-afford at the time
on Liberty loans to prove his loyalty. Worst of all, the rumors
and suspicions that accumulated like barnacles on the company eventually
threatened to sink Sallet financially. One of his papers had collapsed
entirely. The other suffered a decline in subscriptions and therewith
advertising revenue. Ever since the January 1918 attack on his honor
and his company, Sallet had been trying to move the DFP to
St. Paul.

At first Sallet was unable to sell his new Aberdeen building for
an acceptable price. In 1920, however, the time was ripe for a new
English-language paper in Aberdeen, because the former two papers,
the Daily News and the American, had merged to create
the Aberdeen Daily American, the only English paper in the
city. Square Deal Publishing Company was founded to publish this
more liberal newspaper in English and it needed a modern facility.
Negotiations with F. W. Sallet therefore proved successful in allowing
the latter to disavow Aberdeen. Instead of electing St. Paul, however,
Sallet made arrangement with a printing firm in New Ulm, Minnesota,
which was operated and managed by Captain Albert Steinhäuser.
The latter was already publishing other papers and magazines, had
excellent equipment, agreed to install a new and larger press from
Minneapolis, and promised to free Sallet from all the burdensome
chores of production so that he could devote full time to editing
and bookkeeping. 44

Finally, two years after the incidence of arrest, Sallet was forced
to announce to his readers that he had just sold his publishing
and printing establishment in Aberdeen in order to liberate himself
from the heavy burden of his debts. Arrested, imprisoned, bled with
attorney's fees, given little evidence that the climate in Aberdeen
was about to improve, the DFP moved to New Ulm, with the
first issue to appear in the latter city on March 9, 1920. In an
apparent answer to an editorial in the Catholic German-language
North Dakota Herold of Dickinson, in which the move to New
Ulm was called into question, F. W. Sallet explained the paper's
motivation, providing in the process some excellent commentary on
the personality of the paper. He pointed out that the DFP
was not bound in any way to the city of Aberdeen. 45

Since moving from Yankton to Aberdeen, the paper had always had
more readers in North Dakota than in South Dakota, he explained,
and, moreover, it had a large readership in most other states as
well. Furthermore, the paper never before had such a large subscription
roster and, like the Lincoln Freie Presse and the New
Yorker Staatszeitung (to which Sallet now compared his paper),
it was being read throughout the country despite the territorial
designation of its title. "As its content readily indicates,
the Dakota Freie Presse is a worldwide paper, rooted in the
hearts of its readers." Other reasons for the move to New Ulm
had already been given in the February 24, 1920, issue; namely,
that the owners of the publication turned their backs on Aberdeen
because that city was not open-minded and friendly to a German-American
community.

Even now, after the whole world is again at peace with Germany,
citizens of German birth are still being persecuted with incomprehensible
hate there. The Dakota Freie Presse is so independent that
it can choose its home wherever it likes best, a choice which
is not possible for local papers. It is well-known to all that
the pretty, German city of New Ulm is a good place to build ourselves
a home. 46

In 1924, F. W. Sallet received an invitation from his friend and
politician, R.C. Richards of Huron, South Dakota, who came to New
Ulm personally to persuade Sallet to take the DFP back to
its moorings in the Dakotas, and also to start an English-language
weekly as a second paper, one that would still cater to the needs
of the Germans from Russia but would focus on a younger generation.
It was a far-sighted proposal but one that failed to trigger the
sixty-five-year-old Sallet who by this time lacked flexibility for
the move.

From its new base of operations in New Ulm, the DFP, following
the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, operated its own relief program
for the hungry children of Germany. Editor F. W. Sallet personally
sought funds and materials which he shipped to Osterode, East Prussia,
where the entire program was administered by the editor's older
brother, Daniel Gottfried Sallet, the father of Dr. Richard Sallet
who would one day succeed F. W. Sallet in the editor's chair. In
his turn, Daniel Sallet not only wrote regular columns for the weekly
during the 1920s but had on several occasions financially assisted
his younger brother Friedrich W. in obtaining the papers. He also
wrote countless reports for the paper, in part to thank the donors,
in part also to stimulate further giving. His columns generally
appeared under the pen name "Titus," though he also occasionally
sent poems and wrote under his other pen name, "Ernst Heiter"
(Serious Cheerful). Daniel Gottfried Sallet also relayed stories
transmitted to him by refugees fleeing 1920s Russia, especially
the episodes of Bolshevist violence in the Volga and Black Sea German
regions.

In many other ways as well, the paper fulfilled various charitable
functions. It routinely indexed donors' names and amounts for such
organizations as the Volga Relief Society 47,
the Black Sea Relief Society 48, the American
Dairy Cattle Company's projects to send milk cows to Germany 49,
the Russian Relief Package Company, and others. Continuously after
the war, F. W. Sallet advertised that he could send money orders
to Europe for those wishing to aid their relatives. In 1922 he noted
that it was becoming difficult to guarantee that money he sent to
Russia was being delivered, but that there were no problems experienced
with Bessarabia (then the province of Bessarabia, now known as Moldavia)
and Germany.

In 1924, the DFP became the first paper published in the
United States to be allowed re-entry into the Soviet Union. It was
always uppermost in the mind of F. W. Sallet to re-bind and preserve
the ties between German-Russian settlements in the Western hemisphere
and their old home villages in Russia and Romania. Every issue proves
this and demonstrates the role the paper was designed to play as
a connecting link bringing together the scattered kinfolk. With
respect to the 1924 Soviet re-entry permit, Richard Sallet commented
in his 1973 letter, "F. W. Sallet asked the Soviet censorship
office to allow entry into Russia for the DFP and it was
a noteworthy accomplishment when the official answer from Moscow
brought a favorable reply. Alas, the permit was of doubtful value.
The Soviets observed their assurance mainly by disregarding them."
50

Weekly, Sallet published the names of refugees who had sent letters
to his DFP office, offering to forward them to anyone who
would request such letters, if the interested person would remit
payment of seven cents. Again, the letters illustrate a case of
uprooted friends and distant relatives using the good offices of
the newspaper to find each other on distant continents. Frequently,
too, the paper published instructions on how readers might send
packages to Europe, what rate schedule to follow, and what items
were best to send.

Until well into the 1930s, the DFP announced that its Relief
Department was in a position to handle the shipment of life-sustaining
supplies to the Soviet Union. On January 19, 1932, for example,
the list of available packages of food and clothing amounted to
forty-three selections from which the donor could choose. Varied
as to content and size, the packages could be selected by the customer
as suited his taste and ability to pay, by simply sending the number
of his selection together with payment to the DFP office.
All orders were filled by Tietz department store, Berlin's largest
after the Kaufhaus des Westens (Ka De We) and the
prices were somewhat lower if shipment was to European—higher
if destined for Asian—Russia. A typical, average priced package
was:

In April 1931, F. W. Sallet retired and his nephew, Richard Sallet,
became the official editor, performing nobly from long distance.51
However, when he was appointed to the political science department
at Northwestern University, beginning a career in comparative government,
it became obvious that the paper would not thrive with an absentee
editor. Meanwhile, ownership of the paper passed to F. W. Sallet's
three sons.

On September 23, 1932, F. W. Sallet died from a self-inflicted
.22 caliber gunshot wound in the head. A brief suicide note explained
that ill health and adverse business conditions were the reason
for his act.52 Shortly before the tragedy
occurred, Sallet had lost a court suit against his sons Carl, Harald,
and Herbert for repayment of notes amounting to $2,800 and failed
to be awarded an additional $3,000 claimed for the satisfaction
of mortgages.53 He was buried in Minocqua,
in Northern Wisconsin, where Sallet had already spent the last sixteen
summers on his farm site Salletsruh, "Sallet's Restful
Retreat," at Lake Minocqua.

Prompted by Richard Sallet, the family now came to realize that
the DFP would have to be sold. Bidding for the paper were
two German-American publishing firms, that of Valentin Peter with
his Omaha Tägliche Tribune and Emil Leicht with his
National Weeklies in Winona. During this period of transition, Richard
Sallet edited the paper and wrote the Sallet column from Evanston,
Illinois, while continuing his studies at Northwestern University
Law School. Judging the Leicht firm to be the more sturdy financially,
Richard urged his cousins to sell to Leicht in order to guarantee
a longer life for the DFP.

During the negotiation period, Richard Sallet looked after the
editorial part while insisting that in merging with the Dakota
Rundschau, the name of Dakota Freie Presse should prevail
while a subtitle might be added reading approximately "Die
Rundschau der Russlanddeutschen." Also, Richard's editorial
fashioned after F. W. Sallet's "Betrachtungen"
was to be continued indefinitely. Richard's most important point,
however, was to make the new proprietors understand that as many
letters as possible from the German-Russian readers would continue
to be published. These together with especially the letters from
the old home villages in the Soviet Union and Romania were, according
to F. W. Sallet's never-ending admonition, to be the soul and the
backbone of the DFP. During the academic recess of 1932,
Richard Sallet made his last trip on behalf of the DFP, though
now at his own expense, when he visited the principal Black Sea
German villages in Bessarabia and in the Dobrudja.

Once this had been accomplished, Richard Sallet in the summer of
1933 discontinued his relationship with the paper in order to accept
a position on the faculty at the University of Berlin. Richard died
in Madrid, Spain, in mid-July 1975.54 Thus
it is clear that the Sallet family was the owner of the paper throughout
much of its history and that F. W. Sallet was in one way or another
associated with the editorship over three tumultuous decades from
1903-1932. 55

The ownership block for the DFP in the 1930s and 1940s appears
as the National Weeklies, Emil Leicht, President; Frederick E. Leicht
(Emil's son), Secretary and Treasurer.56
During this period, however, the paper was being edited and blocked
out for printing by John Brendel, Dr. H.E. Fritsch, and, for a time,
Felix Schmidt, who used an editorial mailing address at 306 Ninth
Street, Bismarck, North Dakota.57 Fritsch
in Winona was more or less the editor-in-chief of all German-language
papers for the Leicht concern while the actual editorial work was
done by Brendel in Bismarck.

Johannes Brendel, and Dr. Henry E. Fritsch came to the DFP
through a merger of the Dakota Rundschau with the DFP.
However the Rundschau itself derived from three previous
mergers, involving a) the Eureka Rundschau, a Black Sea German
paper owned and published by Gustav Mauser and Otto H. Froh, which
was located in Eureka, South Dakota58 and
which began publishing in Eureka on June 3, 1915, b) the Bismarck
Nordlicht which began publishing on February 1, 1885, and
c) the Mandan Volkszeitung, the initial publication date
of which is unknown. 59

Exactly when the DFP merged with the Dakota Rundschau
is not known precisely, but undoubtedly it was accomplished in late
1932 or early 1933. Indications are that the Dakota Rundschau
was purchased by the National Weeklies as early as 1928.60
After the merger of the DFP with the Dakota Rundschau,
the DFP became the dominant title while it carried the subtitle
"Die Rundschau der Russlanddeutschen vereinigt mit der Dakota
Rundschau," and claimed to reach 1,500 German-Russian settlements
in thirty-two states, Canada, and South America.61
From the editorial staff of the Rundschau, then, the DFP
picked up its principal editors for the1930s and 1940s, namely Brendel
and Fritsch.

John Brendel, a post-World War I Catholic Black Sea German immigrant,
had experienced the Bolshevist revolutions in Russia. Born in 1874,
he was a recognized authority on his Black Sea home area known as
the Kutschurgan Catholic colonies northeast of Odessa.62
A native of Vienna with a Ph.D. from Zurich, Fritsch first lived
in Chicago, then came to the Leicht Press in 1929. Thereafter he
lived in Winona where he worked as an editorial assistant on several
of the German papers of the National Weeklies and paid frequent
calls on DFP personnel in North Dakota. Upon the outbreak
of hostilities between the United States and Germany in December
of 1941, however, Fritsch was arrested as an alien and interned
first in St. Paul, then in Sparta, Wisconsin. In May 1942 he was
returned to Germany on board the Swedish ship Drottningholm,
named for the famous royal castle in Sweden, as one party in an
arrangement for the exchange of foreign journalists from both warring
nations.63 The name of Schmidt was listed
in the editorial block of the DFP only until September 16,
1942. From March 11 to September 16, 1942, the names of L. Luedtke,
A. Hochscheid, and Frau Grete (obviously a pen name) resided in
Milwaukee and was responsible for the section, Für Hausfrau,
Gattin, und Mutter (for the housekeeper, wife, and mother).
After September 16, 1942, only John Brendel was consistently associated
with the editorship in Bismarck until Joseph Gaeckle came into the
picture for the first time on August 4, 1948.

After the paper was passed into the hands of the Winona National
Weeklies, Inc., in 1933 64, it took on some
new aspects. There was one page for national news, another where
a novel was serialized, one which was identified as the "National
Farmer" - Haus and Bauernfreund (tips for home and farm),
and many pictures depicting news stories the world over. Also, it
assumed Latin rather than the Fraktur script for some of
its articles. Allegations have been made recently that the paper
during the mid-1930s was extremist, racist, and pro-Nazi.65
While plenty of evidence can be assembled to prove editorial sympathy
with the German cause during the 1930s, there is little convincing
proof of a pro-Nazi or racist stance. Nor is it clear that the Auslandsorganisation
(the active Nazi unit concerned with the Germans in America rather
than the Ausland-Institut as often claimed by some scholars in America)
held much hope for the recruitment of Russian Germans for the Warthegau
(region along the Warthe River, formerly the province of Posen).66
That perhaps 750 or so responded to a poorly orchestrated
recruitment can scarcely be ascribed to any campaign in the DFP
that was instigated from Germany.

As early as 1933 Richard Sallet, at first wary of the Little Corporal,
within some months of Hitler's ascension to power wrote of the successes
the New Germany had in correcting the mistakes of Versailles and
the mismanagement of Weimar. More accurately, the paper through
the entire 1930s exhibited an almost pathological hatred of the
Bolsheviks. Constant pleas went out in editorials and in front-page
columns for the plight of the Germans in Communist Russia. German
diplomats were requested to help German-Russian escapees reach the
United States. In 1933 a panel of prominent German-Russian professionals
in the United States called for a blue-ribbon umbrella committee
that would spearhead the cause of the forlorn Germans in Russia.67
It seems not to have materialized. Many leaders and editors of the
DFP exhorted governments to take whatever action they could
that would bring relief to their German-Russians in need. 68

When Lend Lease was proposed for the allies who stood against Nazi
Germany, the DFP urged its readers to persuade their representatives
in Washington to oppose it. When the war finally broke out, the
editors understandably were sympathetic to the German successes,
and upon the invasion of Russia in June 1941, the "voice of
the Russian Germans" was delighted that their brothers in Russia
might now be freed from oppression. During this period the paper
never forgot its long-standing mission which in now penned in old
handwritten gothic script over the masthead Die Stimme der Russlanddeustchen
in Amerika- "The voice of the Russian Germans in America."
During the early 1940s there was a great deal of information about
German victories in the Ukraine (Black Sea region), coupled with
information about the fate of Volga or Black Sea colonists and stories
from their more distant past, e.g. about World War I conditions
in Russia. Only circuitously could the DFP's stance reasonably
be interpreted as pro-Nazi. Rather it was passionately anti-Communist
and seems to have found a clear conscience for being pro-German
because it could conveniently be anti-Nazi. No conclusive word on
this issue can be rendered without a much more extensive analysis.

In 1954, the paper was being edited by Joseph Gaeckle,69
who had received his education in Bessarabia (Moldavia). Born there
in 1874, Gaeckle later served as the Schreiber (administrator)
of his German village. Prior to assuming the editorship of the DFP,
Gaeckle had held civic offices including mayor of Kulm, North Dakota.
Although not formally trained as a newspaper professional, Gaeckle
had an excellent command of High German and had been contributing
reports about the Kulm German-Russians to the DFP long before
assuming the editorship. While Gaeckle performed the editorial services
in Kulm, printing continued at National Weeklies in Winona.

When the DFP disappeared as a visible organ in 1954, it
did not entirely cease publication, for it was consolidated with
the America Herold Zeitung. In its last report to the subscribers,
the management reported that rising costs justified an increase
in subscription prices at that time. But instead of raising rates,

we have arrived at a decision to undertake a small variation
or consolidation. Immigration of Germans from Russia has shrunk
to a small number and will probably cease altogether in the not-too-distant
future. Thus there is no likelihood that the readership of the
Dakota Freie Presse will increase. Beginning next week,
therfore, DFP readers will be offered a newspaper under
the title America Herold. The value of your newspaper will
thereby be increased because the usual news from North and South
Dakota will be presented on the last page of the Herold.
Only in this way can we continue to offer you the paper for the
same price. 70

When the paper finally lost its identity in 1954, it had eminently
accomplished its task of shepherding Germans from Russia through
their unique destiny. Like an old and faithful patriarch, it could
now pass away. Its circulation had swollen from 1,200 in 1880 to
2,100 in 1890; 3,400 in 1900; 9,500 in 1910; and 13,800 in 1920;
but then shrank to 11,000 in 1935; 5,400 in 1944; and just 1,500
in 1950. The DFP performed its mission, if anything, rather
too well than too little. Clearly it smoothed the hardships of long
migrations and of pioneer life while it eased the crises of assimilation
that the majority of its readers had to endure. When all of this
had been done, when all of its children had grown up, then the patriarchal
DFP could succumb gracefully and rest in peace. But the paper
and its famous editor have not been totally forgotten.

Recently the South Dakota Highway Department erected a historical
marker about the DFP in Aberdeen identified as "F. W.
Sallet and the Dakota Freie Presse." While the original
location of the DFP building was at 524 South Main Street,
the marker stands in Nicollet Park next to the Aberdeen Visitor
Center, about a half block west of the intersection of 6th Avenue
and Dakota Street. The organizational fund drive originated with
Dr. Harry Delker, president of the Deutscher Kultur Verein, the
Aberdeen chapter of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society. On
the bronze marker is a text composed by this author which reads
as follows:

Two German-language newspapers, Dakota Freie Presse (DFP)
and Neue Deutsche Presse (NDP), were located a short
distance from here at 524 South Main St. Owner and editor, Friedrich
Wilhelm Sallet, emigrated from East Prussia and published the
DFP for Germans from Russia with the NDP for Reich
Germans. Aberdeen was a hub for both groups. Begun in 1874 in
Yankton, the DFP was purchased by Sallet in 1903 and moved
to Aberdeen in 1909.

The DFP was "the oldest and most widely distributed
newspaper for Germans from Russia in the world." It claimed
to have subscribers in 1,500 (Germans from Russia) communities
on four continents. Sallet used the DFP as headquarters
for a relief department which sent packages to famished Soviet
villages in 1921 and four shiploads of dairy cows to supply milk
to German orphanages. The DFP carried weekly columns for
people seeking addresses of lost individuals, operated as a clearing
house on land and immigration, and in 1924 became the first U.S.
paper allowed re-entry into the Soviet Union.

Wrongly suspected of being pro-German, Sallet and his NDP
editor, J.F. Paul Gross, were arrested Jan. 19, 1918 in Aberdeen
and charged with not filing English translations of two articles
with the post office. Following a May 5 trial, Gross was interned
in Georgia while Sallet paid a $500 fine and $6,000 in legal costs.
Sallet was defended by Dorothy Rehfeld, the first female attorney
to practice in South Dakota. The NDP ceased publication
in January 1918. In 1920, the DFP moved to Minnesota and
continued until 1954. After F. W. Sallet's death in 1932, his
nephew (Dr. Richard Sallet) became the editor.

F.W. Sallet at his desk with the Dakota
Freie Presse, probably during his stay at New Ulm. In the January
22, 1918, edition of the DFP, Sallet announced in both German
and English the distressing news of the arrest of the Editor
J.F. Paul Gross and himself for not having translated and printed
all war-related items in both languages. -Photos courtesy of
the author

The F.W. Sallet family with the three sons
from his first marriage to Ida Rosenbreier (Harald, Herbert,
and Carl, all standing) and the two from his marriage to Elizabeth
Goetz (Fritz and Hans, on father's lap), taken in an Aberdeen
studio. -Photo courtesy of the author

Elizabeth Goetz Sallet in center, F.W. Sallet
at right, taken at "Salletsruh," their country home near Minocqua,
Wisconsin. Man at left is Sallet's lifelong business partner,
Conrad Kornmann. -Photo courtesy of the author

F.W. Sallet sitting in the yard with his
two youngest sons and his wife at the Minocqua summer home.
From left to right, Fritz (F.W., Jr.), F.W. Sallet, Mrs. Elizabeth
(Goetz) Sallet, and Hans, taken about 1925. -Photo courtesy
of the author

F. W. Sallet, left, with his nephew, Richard
Sallet, taken about 1925 at Salletsruh. Richard was recruited
by his uncle to come to the United States and train for the
future editorship of the DFP. Having lost his oldest brother
in the German air force of World War 1, Richard and his second
brother, upon being discharged from the army, were planning
to study at Konigsberg University when it fell to Richard to
give up the idea of law in favor of joining the editorial staff
of the DFP in October, 1921. In 1923 he succeeded Conrad Kornmann
as managing editor of the paper.
Coming out of a country demoralized by revolution and torn by
political hatred, Richard recalled how inspiring it was to become
acquainted with the German Russians of America. "Here were
simple, and modest people, wholesome and morally sound and altogether
of admirable character." In the 1920s, Dr. Sallet wrote,
the future of the DFP grew dimmer. At first they reckoned that
in the wake of war, revolution, starvation, and harsh Soviet
rule in Russia, many thousands of German Russians would be joining
their kinfolk in the United States. Instead, the new U.S. immigration
laws of (1921, 1924, and 1929 reduced the entries from Russia
and Rumania to a mere trickle since quotas were assigned to
each nationality in accordance with original American stock.
Hence only citizens of England, Ireland, and Germany had high
immigration quotas, and the German Russians were not citizens
of Germany. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that emigration
from Soviet Russia was virtually choked off during the 1920s.-Photo
courtesy of the author

A special correspondent for the Dakota Freie
Presse in a Russian village, a teacher by the name of Kehrer
with his family, featured in the July 5, 1909, edition of the
DFP.
-Courtesy of South Dakota Historical Society

Portion of an April 6, 1903, advertisement
from the Handelshaus A. Rapport in Odessa, Russia, offering
government approved ship tickets for emigrants in the U.S.,
available by prepayment from the immigrants in the U.S. through
the Dakota Freie Presse. -Courtesy of South Dakota Historical
Society

Portion of a June 3, 1909, advertisement
for one of the trachoma specialists who traveled from the Twin
Cities to various Dakota towns to treat people with this disease.
-Courtesy of South Dakota Historical Society

The July 8, 1909, edition of the Dakota
Freie Press marked the first issue of the paper published in
Aberdeen, South Dakota. F.W. Sallet took this opportunity to
address the English-speaking citizens of Aberdeen and featured
illustrations of the new plant.

F.W. Sallet, photographed on June 13, 1880,
at the age of twenty-one, in a Konigsberg, East Prussia, studio
at Munz Strasse 14 prior to his departure for St. Petersberg
and Sweden. -Photo courtesy of the author

La Vern J. Rippley, professor at St. Olaf College, Northfield,
Minnesota, is the author of The German-Americans, The Immigration
Experience in Wisconsin, and is the author or translator of
eleven other books, including Russian-German Settlements in the
United States.

1This article is a substantially revised
and expanded version of two articles by the same author that appeared
in Heritage Review, 7 (December 1973), pp. 9-17, and 9
(December 1974), pp. 15-20.2 Hutterites are considered to be in the
"Mennonite" category. Most Hutterites moved to Canada
as a result of World War I opposition to their lifestyle, but since
World War II, they have moved back in large numbers to South Dakota.
Here and in adjacent states, they continue their communal lifestyle
and their dialect of German.3 See the masthead that ran continuously
in Dakota Freie Presse, e.g., January 1, 1941. Hereafter
noted as DFP.4 Reported in Carl Wittke, The German-Language
Press in America (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press,
1957), p. 7.5 From a humble nineteen-year-old reporter
for the New York Sun, Brisbane rose via Joseph Pulitzer at the World,
to Hearst in 1897, traveling miles intellectually from the social
utopian reformist ideals of his younger days to a dogmatic conservative
stance by his death in 1936. At Hearst, Brisbane took the Journal’s
circulation up from 40,000 to 325,000 in just seven weeks. Eventually
Brisbane’s "Today" column appeared in all the
Hearst papers while "This Week" ran in 1,200 weeklies,
creating his reputation of being read by more people than any other
living human. His style was terse, driving, and cuttingly clear,
but often controversial, leading his critics to charge he was reversible,
contradictory, and a man with an adjustable conscience. See "Brisbane"
in Joseph P. McKerns, ed. Biographical Dictionary of American
Journalism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989) and Oliver
Carlson, Brisbane: A Candid Biography (New York: Stackpole
and Sons, 1937).6 Shortly after his move from Yankton to
Aberdeen, F.W. Sallet called for the histories that he published
beginning in July 1909, and for several years thereafter. They were
translated into English by La Vern J. Rippley and published in the
Heritage Review in Bismarck under the title "Contributions
Toward a History of the German-Russian Settlements in North America,"
beginning with No. 12 (1975) and thereafter.7 For further information about this ethnic
group, see Karl Stumpp, The German-Russians, trans. Joseph
S. Height, 3rd ed. (Freilassing, Germany: Pannonia Verlag, 1966);
Richard Sallet, Russian-GermanSettlements in the United
States, trans. La Vern J. Rippley and Armand Bauer (Fargo,
ND: Institute for Regional Studies, 1974); Adam Giesinger, From
Katherine to Khrushchev (Winnipeg, Canada: A. Giesinger, 1974);
Hattie Plum Williams, The Czar’s Germans (Lincoln:
AHSGR, 1975); Fred Koch, The Volga Germans (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1977); James L. Long, Russian
Language Sources Relating to the Germans from Russia (Fort
Collins: Colorado State University, 1976), and From Privileged
to Dispossessed: The Volga Germans, 1860-1917 (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1988); and Michael Miller, Researching the
Germans from Russia (Fargo, ND: North Dakota Institute for
Regional Studies, 1987). Also valuable are C. Henry Smith, The
Coming of the Russian Mennonites (Berne, IN: Mennonite Book
Concern, 1927); George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory,
I (Chicago: Clark Publishing Co., 1915), pp. 703-717, Chapter 57
"The Coming of the German-Russians"; and John P. Johansen,
Immigrant Settlements and Social Organizations in South Dakota,
Bulletin 313 (Brookings: South Dakota State College, June, 1937).8 From 1919-1938, the full title was Der
Auslanddeutsche. Halbmonatsschrift für Auslanddeutschtum und
Auslandkunde. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Ausland-Instituts.
From March 1938-1944 the journal switched names to Deutschtum
in Ausland.9 Reported in Richard Sallet, Russian-German
Settlements, p. 89.10Ibid. p. 93.11 Here I rely for my information on Karl
J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson, German-American Newspapers and
Periodicals 1732-1955 (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1961),
p. 421; on the biographical entry on Salomon Wenzlaff in George
W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, 5, pp. 972-975,
and on letters that I received from Theodore C. Wenzlaff of Sutton,
Nebraska, whose uncle was Salomon Wenzlaff.12 G. G. Wenzlaff, A Son of Colonia the
Forgotten (Los Angeles: David H. Schol Co., 1937). pp. 132-133.13 After selling the paper, Salomon established
a successful chain of banks in the towns of Eureka and Artas, South
Dakota, and at Hauge and Linton, North Dakota.14 G. G. Wenzlaff, A Long and Well-Spent
Life, quoted to me by T. C. Wenzlaff.15 Quoted to me by T. C. Wenzlaff. See also
an obituary on Johann Christian Wenzlaff which the T. C. Wenzlaff
family clipped from the DFP on September 22, 1894.16 Arndt/Olson, p. 421.17 See the obituary for Ida Sallet Marx,
77, in New Ulm Journal, March 22, 1943.18 He married Margaret Schachte on June 8,
1917, had two sons and a daughter, and died in New Ulm on November
12, 1949.19 He married Lydia Heiser (daughter of Philip)
of Zeeland, North Dakota, and also spent his senior years in New
Ulm. See the obituaries for Carl Sallet, New Ulm Journal,
December 12, 1949, and for Harald W. Sallet, NUJ, February 1, 1978.
Herbert married Catherine, also the daughter of Philip Heiser of
Zeeland, North Dakota.20 Hattie married twice (Johnson of Merrill)
and died about 1961 in Milwaukee.21 Since 1932, after her husband, F. W. Sallet
had passed away, Elizabeth Sallet operated a small resort known
as Sallet’s Cottages at Minocqua. See obituaries in Rhinelander
Daily News, December 30, 1946, and Lakeland Times,
January 3, 1947.23 See the front-page entry by Richard Sallet
in the DFP, December 17, 1929, in tribute to F. W. Sallet’s
seventieth birthday.24 See Donald E. Oehlerts, Guide to Wisconsin
Newspapers 1833-1957 (Madison: State Historical Society of
Wisconsin, 1958), pp. 140-141; obituary of Ida Sallet Marx, New
Ulm Journal, March 22, 1943; and DFP, December 17, 1929.
See the front-page article "An die Leser" in DFP,
March 29, 1906, and the succeeding new masthead, April 5, 1906,
and following.25 Although the reasons for the 1906 sale
are unknown, we do know that 1906 was the year F. W. Sallet was
divorced from his Finnish-born wife, Ida Rosenbreier. He married
Elizabeth Goetz of Yankton on August 4, 1906. The same year Ida
left with their children for Indianapolis, then moved back to Merrill
where she married August Marx, but after his death in 1933 she spent
winters in New Ulm in order to reside with her son Harald W. Sallet
at 409 South Washington Street.26 See the front-page lead article DFP,
March 19, 1908.27 DFP, July 1, 1909.28 DFP, July 8, 1909.29 For example, at the Austro-Hungary Camp
Wegscheid. Richard Sallet, Russian-German Settlements,
p. 93. Frequently these prisoners eventually made their way to the
United States.30 DFP, April 7, 1933.31 E. g., DFP, June 9, 1933.32 Later published as Richard Sallet, "Russlanddeutsche
Siedlungen in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika," Duetsch-Amerikanische
Geschichtsblatter, 31 (1931). The dissertation was submitted
to the faculty at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia.33 Sallet, Russian-German Settlements,
p. 67.34 The German and Austrian Red cross was
very active in collecting charitable donations in every German-American
city in North America. Cf. La Vern J. Rippley, The Immigrant
Experience in Wisconsin (Boston: Twayne, 1985), p. 98.35 DFP, December 17, 1929, p. 8.36 Wittke, The German-Language Press,
p. 264.37 DFP, February 5, 1918.38 Ibid.39 Aberdeen Daily American, May
5, 1918, front page.40 DFP, May 21, 1918.41 Aberdeen Daily American, May
9, 1918, p. 8.42 In the exact words of the newspaper, "F.
W. Sallet pled guilty to a charge of failing to file a translation
of an article published in his paper with the postal authorities,
under the section of the espionage law requiring foreign language
newspapers to file translations. His attorney, J. J. Conroy, read
an affidavit showing that the violation of the law was a technical
one and that it had been committed by J. F. P. Gross, the assistant
editor without Sallet’s knowledge." Aberdeen Daily
American, May 16, 1918, p. 8.43 Aberdeen Daily American, May
16, 1918, p. 8.44 At the time of the move, the paper was
annotated as having begun publication in 1874. It was then in its
46th year of publication, having published its 2,389th issue. Legally
it was owned by the Freie Presse Printing Co., which included F.
W. Sallet, Conrad Kornmann, C. F. Sallet, and H. W. Sallet, with
the address give simply as New Ulm. (Note that Kornmann, who in
Sioux Falls had been sentenced to a ten-year prison term, less than
two years later was back at work on this German newspaper.) The
DFP appeared every Tuesday. At this time, subscriptions
in the United States cost $2.50, in Canada and anywhere abroad $3.00.
One year later, however, the rates had risen by fifty cents. The
editor, of course, was F. W. Sallet. The managing editor and business
manager was Conrad Kornmann. Kornmann was a stockholder in the Freie
Presse Printing Co., but left the paper in 1923 when Richard Sallet
succeeded him as managing editor. Kornmann then joined the St. Paul
Tagliche Volkszeitung but died in 1930 in a streetcar accident
in Portland, Oregon. DFP, April 12, 1921.45 See DFP, March 9, 1920, and Arndt/Olson,
p. 423. Note that Sallet addresses his comments to a Mr. Brandt,
whereas Arndt/Olson refer to an editor H. H. R. Berndt of the Nord-Dakota
Herold although they list his tenure of the Herold’s
editorship as concluding in the year 1912, therefore indicationg
that he was not with the paper in 1920 when the Sallet editorial
was written. Arndt/Olson are in error. The Dickinson Herold
had only a limited clientele among Roman Catholic Black Sea Germans
and never offered much competition to the DFP. On the other
hand, the Staats-Anzeiger of Bismarck under Frank L. Brandt
was actively competing with the DFP, frequently contacting
the DFP’s correspondents in Russia and Romania, trying
to win them away from Sallet. On one occasion F. W. Sallet angrily
compared Brandt to "a hungry dog trailing a meat wagon."
Letter from Richard Sallet, December 10, 1973.46 See DFP, March 9, 1920. Note
also on page 4 the statement that F. W. Sallet had once live for
two years in New Ulm, and perhaps this inclined him to move the
paper back there.47 Emma Schwabenland Haynes, A History
of the Volga Relief Society (Lincoln, Nebraska: AHSGR, 1982),
130 pp.48 La Vern J. Rippley, "The Marion
Central Relief Committee and the Soviet Famine of 1921-23,"
Heritage Review, 13 (September 1983), pp. 6-13.49 La Vern J. Rippley, "Gift Cows for
Germany," North Dakota History, 40 (Summer 1973),
pp. 4-15, and "American Milk Cows for German: A Sequel,"
NDH, 44 (Summer 1977), pp. 15-23.50 Letter from Richard Sallet, December 10,
1973.51 Prior to October 25, 1932, the DFP
had been edited and published in New Ulm, Minnesota. During 1932
the weekly ownership block carried the information: "Published
every Tuesday by Freie Presse Printing, Inc., C. F. Sallet, Business
Manager, 22 ½ N. Minnesota St., New Ulm Minn." The
ownership was listed as F. W. Sallet, Carl F. Sallet, Harold W.
Sallet, and Herbert H. Sallet. The editor was given as Richard Sallet
of Evanston, Illinois. DFP, January 5, 1932.52 See obituaries in Daily Enterprise
of New Ulm, Brown County, Minnesota, September 26, 1932, in
the Brown County Journal, September 30, 1932, p.6, the
New Ulm Review, September 29, 1932, p. 1, and the Minocqua Times,
September 30, 1932, p. 1. See also the lengthy obituary by Richard
Sallet in DFP, October 4, 1932.53 See the front-page articles in Brown
County Journal, January 8, 1932, and New Ulm Review,
January 7, 1932.54 See obituary in New Ulm Journal,
July 18, 1975.55 DFP, October 18, 1932. Arndt/Olson
give a confusing report about the editorship of F. W. Sallet, but
letters from Dr. Richard Sallet, when he was living in retirement
in Spain, indicate that his uncle, F. W. Sallet, was continuously
writing for the paper from 1903-1932. A casual glance at the data
in Arndt/Olson under both Eureka and Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
will show that F. W. Sallet also edited and published other newspapers,
notable the Eureka Dakota Volkszeitung from which he acquired
his assistant editor J. F. Paul Gross (who went to prison), and
the Sioux Falls Deutscher-Herold, from which he recruited
Conrad Kornmann, a North German who was an employee of Hans Demuth
at the time.56 In the fall of 1972, I interviewed Dorothy
Leicht, Emil’s daughter, who lived in Winona, but I was unable
to learn many particulars about the German-language publications.
I also made an appointment to interview Otto Hoermann who was one
of the last prime movers in the German-language publishing business
of the Leicht family but he died before I could speak with him.
His son communicated with me but was not well-informed about his
father’s work. According to Dorothy Leicht, the building of
the Leicht press, which formerly stood at 179 East Second Street
in Winona, was dismantled in 1969 and backlogs of the German-language
newspapers stored there until that time were hauled to the dump.
It is likely that some back issues of the DFP were included
in this disposal.57 DFP, January 1, 1941.58 For a brief period in 1912, J. F. Paul
Gross edited the Dakota Volkszeitung in Eureka and may
have been associated with the Rundschau before joining
Sallet to edit his Neue Duetsche Presse in Aberdeen where
he was arrested. Arndt/Olson, p. 39.59 Arndt/Olson, p. 422, and Sallet, p. 88.60 Arndt/Olson, p. 422. Note, however, that
it did not continue into 1942 as stated in the report of Arndt/Olson
but actually merged by January 1, 1941.61DFP, January 1, 1941.62 Prior to his arrival in Eureka, South
Dakota, he had already published his 108-page monograph Aus
deutschen Kolonien im Kurschurganer gebiet (Stuttgart: Ausland
und Heimat Verlags-Aktiengesellschaft, 1930).63 Henry Fritsch returned to the U.S. after
the war but not to the DFP. He died in 1958 and lies buried
in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Winona. His widow granted me an
interview.64 The National Weeklies, Inc., was an outgrowth
of the Westlicher Herold Publishing Company of Winona. The complete
story of this large German-language publishing house still remains
to be told. Only a brief sketch is provided here. In 1924 the management
accepted a merger with the German-language Brumder publishing interests
of Milwaukee, resulting in the new name "National Weeklies,"
which was undoubtedly the largest German-language newspaper syndicate
in the United States. In January 1925, the publishers released this
statement: "We have, for eight years, published nine different
papers in which 43 older papers had been merged; these papers carried
practically the same national and foreign news, with local pages
added for the various regions. Then, on December 1, 1924, all the
Westlicher Herold Publishing Company’s publications were consolidated,
and now appear as America-Herold."65 Jonathan F. Wagner, "Nazi Propaganda
Among North Dakota’s German, 1934-1941," North Dakota
History, 54 (Winter 1987), pp. 15-24.66 Arthur L. smith, "The Kameradschaft
USA," Journal of Modern History, 34 (1962), 402,
and in general the chapter "The Relationship of Nazi Germany
to America’s German Element" in La Vern J. Rippley,
The German-Americans (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1985), pp. 196-213, esp. p. 208.67 DFP, August 18, 1933. Among the
petitioners were Georg Rath, John Brendel, and Val J. Peter, publisher/editor
of the prominent Welt-Post Volga German paper in Lincoln,
Nebraska.68 A good example is the petition published
in the DFP, May 19, 1933, and signed by Georg Rath, the
pastor at Laurel, Montana; John Brendel, the editor at Bismarck;
Dr. Richard Sallet, the editor at Evanston, Illinois; Dr. Theodor
Otto, the contributor in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Heinrich Tober,
from Fresno, California; Christian Dutt from Tolstoy, North Dakota;
and Reverend G. Landgrebe, from Elgin, North Dakota.69 DFP, August 4, 1948. I am grateful
to Dr. Armand Bauer of Bismarck, North Dakota, for biographical
information about Joseph Gaeckle. Specifically, Dr. Bauer interviewed
Oscar Lang, retired postmaster of Kulm, North Dakota, in September
1973, and visited with Lawrence Koenig of Fargo, who formerly lived
in Kulm. Additional specifics about Gaeckle and his brother George
Gackle (sic) are available in the 1957 Kulm Jubilee Book,
pp. 48 and 86 respectively.70 DFP, February 24, 1954. For information
about the America-Herold, see Arndt/Olson, pp. 233-234.
However, the authors do not mention the merger of the America-Herold
with the Dakota Freie Presse. In the section on South Dakota,
p. 608, the paper is curtly listed under Aberdeen as having been
a weekly published between 1874 and 1925. However, in the entry
under Bismarck, p. 421, the details are rather correctly cataloged.
See also the entry under New Ulm, Minnesota, p. 224.

Our appreciation is extended to the State Historical Society
of North Dakota for permission to reprint this article.